Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. exhausted, utterly tired, beaten.

1900		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 14 Apr. 11/3: Wine and late suppers proved the boxers’s physical undoing, and when he came back to this country [...] he was ‘all in’.
1902		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley’s Opinions 104: I’ve surrindered, Cerveera. I’m done. I quit. I’m all in.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 27Jan. 6/7: Hanlon was all in and barely whispered to the champion.
1905		‘Hugh McHugh’ Get Next 97: The observation that men were all in at 40 and rauss mittim at 60.
1909		B. Fisher Mutt & Jeff 10 Dec. [synd. cartoon] Aw, Mutt, I can’t go no more. I’m ‘in’.
1913		Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 27 July 8/5: [US speaker] ‘We’ve had such a run of glad-hand stunts that every other morning we feel “all in,” or in Australian parlance, “quite knocked up”’.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Wandering Boy’ Ade’s Fables 130: Riding home in the Livery Hacks about 4 A.M., the Merry-Makers would be all in.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘May Day’ Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 146: ‘I’m all in,’ he continued, his voice trembling.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 94: The buck of York barracks was unquestionably ‘all in’.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 139: In the evenings when he got home he was all in.
1935		H. McCoy They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? in Four Novels (1983) 39: Ruby came back into the race, looking all in too.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 154: ‘Aw, don’t be a nark,’ the boy stammered. ‘Be a sport and help me upstairs. I’m all in.’.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 145: Danny and George were still running easily, but Toro was all in.
1958		J. Osborne Epitaph for George Dillon Act III: He must feel all in after that journey.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 151: You look all in.
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 19: You look all in [...] I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 158: You do sound all in. Other women? Or just bad companions to go with your bad habits?

2. penniless.

1903		Inter Ocean (Chicago) 25 Jan. 34/4: The red-and-black ate that final $100 [...] and then I was all in except a few dollars loose change.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 227: I guess he was all in.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Shocks of Doom’ in Voice of the City (1915) 98: I’m sorry to say that I’m all in, financially.
1929		K.S. Prichard Coonardoo 256: I’m all in, Hugh [...] Rough as bags and all that.

3. (Aus.) lit. or fig. dead.

1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 238: He’s all in.
1992		M. Coleman Fatty 55: ‘After about 20 minutes Max Krillich got king-hit after he played the ball and it was all in.’.

4. drunk.

1959

A. Sinclair Breaking of Bumbo (1961) 36: You’re all in.

5. (US) fully committed.

2015		G. Weigel Letters to a Young Catholic (rev. edn) 318: [L]iving what we can call all-in Catholicism for eight, nine, or twelve months tends to energize all-in Catholicism for a lifetime.
2020		B. Dempski et al. Dalko 233: Brian and Bill were therefore ‘all in’ for doing the definitive biography of Dalko.
2021		H. Joyce Trans 123: [P]arents who have turned their children into their public activism are all in.